


closer than my hands have been

by arahir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Jealous Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Shiro is a Mess, keith is hot mess, lotor is just hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 18:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12260058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: Keith and Lotor hit it off. Shiro isn't ok with this reality."Well they're both part Galra and have a really questionable relationship with their swords. I mean, I'm just spit balling but that's probably part of it."It doesn't help, because Lance is right. Lotor has been here for two days in a tentative alliance that’s looking like it might it shake out to something permanent. Shiro should be overjoyed. This is their chance, their edge against Zarkon, but—Across the room, Keith says something soft, and Lotor smiles down at him, bright eyed and genuine.Shiro can’t breathe.





	closer than my hands have been

**Author's Note:**

> [cliffsedgex asked](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/166022766225/lotor-is-on-his-hair-game-if-lance-is-using-food): Keith seeing some alien flirting with Shiro and internally going all "binch back off my man" but then reeling "wait it's not like i'm in love with Shiro or something", further questioning the true nature of his feeling towards his best friend and beloved mentor.
> 
> it's not going to look like it at first, but i swear this is the right prompt.

"Well they're both part Galra and have a really questionable relationship with their swords. I mean, I'm just spit balling but that's probably part of it."

It doesn't help, because Lance is right. Lotor has been here for two days in a tentative alliance that’s looking like it might it shake out to something permanent. Shiro should be overjoyed. This is their chance, their edge against Zarkon, but—

Across the room, Keith says something soft, and Lotor smiles down at him, bright eyed and genuine.

Shiro can’t breathe.

They’re all on the training deck, ostensibly team building with Lotor’s crew, but it’s turned into this: bonding over the slow-motion train wreck they’re all being forced to watch. Except the trains are their respective leaders and the wreck is more of a _can you feel the love tonight_ scene, moments before the climax.

It’s been the worst two days of Shiro’s life, which really is saying something.

As they watch, Keith’s blade transforms in a blue flash, and Lotor gasps in awe that probably isn’t even fake. Unbelievable.

The Galra with the ears—Zethrid, he reminds himself—rolls her eyes and puts her face in her palm, muttering something disparaging as Lotor leans over Keith from behind, looking at some detail on Keith’s blade. Why that requires near full body contact is beyond Shiro, but no one asked him.

He’s huge in comparison to Keith. His white hair falls forward over his shoulders as he leans there, dusting over Keith’s cheek. Keith brushes it away and twists the blade in the light. They’re talking quietly, excitedly, between each other. The yellow-eyed jealous thing that’s taken up permanent residence in the back of Shiro’s mind growls.

Allura and Coran are the smartest and best of them. She peaced out after she realized the only threat Lotor presented on the ship was to Keith's honor—about the time Keith and Lotor started “sparring” which was less fighting and more fawning over each other’s  _form._

Shiro has form too, but no one asked him about that either. The rest of the room might as well not exist to the pair in the middle.

It’s like looking at a new version of Keith, one that grew into his own while Shiro was gone in his second round of Galra captivity, and he hasn’t even had a chance to get to know him before he’s being ripped away. A joke, Shiro thinks. This is a cruel joke. Keith, reticent and fierce, and Lotor, somehow slipping in right under those defenses. This is exactly what he’s always wanted for Keith—for him to be at ease, confident in his own abilities, as extraordinary to everyone else as he is to Shiro.

“Well, this sucks.” Ezor whispers. “Do you think they’ll forget we’re here and do it on the floor?”

The yellow-eyed thing kicks up in the back of his mind, at the same moment the cat on Narti’s shoulder growls, and that’s Shiro’s life now. He’s relating to a demonic alien cat while his best friend and long-term hopeless crush falls in love in front of his eyes.

It’s agony.

Lotor sets his hand on Keith's shoulder in a casual gesture that Keith should flinch at, a gesture that took Shiro three months and a road-side convenience store's worth of chocolate to get close enough to Keith to attempt, but Keith glances down at the hand—massive, as large as Shiro's at minimum—and smiles _._

The thing stalking the back of his mind roars. _Don't imagine it_ , he thinks, too late.

It’s so easy to see it: a shadowy hand splayed against Keith's pale chest, white hair mixed with Keith's sweat-lank black, and the _sounds_ —is that what Keith sounds like? What does Keith sound like? His mind whirls, running through the full library of Highly Suspect Keith sounds he wasn't aware he'd been keeping with meticulous devotion.

Keith moaning when his pre-spar stretches find a sore spot. Keith getting in a good hit. Keith _taking_ a good hit. Keith panting at the end of a fight, eyeing Shiro from under his bangs with a grin.

And Keith laughing. Nothing like bells, but a full-body thing that always has him clutching his stomach. If something’s worth laughing at, Keith laughs _,_ but Shiro doesn't even have to imagine that one—across the room, Keith is actually laughing at something Lotor said.

He can’t remember the last time he heard Keith laugh.

Shiro doesn't storm out. Not really. He paces, quickly, in no specific direction but away from the deck and his own thoughts.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Hey uh. Are you ok?" Hunk asks delicate-like, when he finds Shiro sitting in the galley ten minutes later, contemplating the meaning of life in a bowl of lukewarm food goo. "Because—" Shiro looks up, smiles at him, "—no, see? What your face just did? What is that?"

Shiro tries to make the smile reach his eyes. Hunk flinches back, violently.

"Stop! Just—stop." He looks down pushes his index fingers together in a nervous motion. "I know that you're... feeling feelings right now, about things."

No. No, he's not. He survived two years of the Garrison with close-quarters teenage Keith being very beautiful and very messy and very oblivious to the fact that everyone in a four bed vicinity could hear him getting off at night. Time alone in the desert didn't teach a kid how to be subtle, evidently. Shiro lost two weeks of his life to glaring down any cadet that looked at him funny or walked to close to his bunk—or, memorably, tried to steal his undergarments. By the end of it he wasn't fully human and he had half the Garrison living in mortal terror, but he survived it. He can survive this.

Then again, Keith didn’t know what he was doing then. Keith knows now.

Before the conversation they aren’t having can go any further downhill, Lance and Pidge walk in, the distant sound of Keith's laughter hot on their heels.

Still? Really?

"This is a situation," Lance announces. "I don't like this. I don't want this. That bitch better watch out."

Eminently helpful, as always, because now Shiro is going to have to convince them to take the high road while he’s down in the mud imagining every scenario where he could cut off all of Lotor’s hair and pass it off as an accident.

Lance shoots him an almost accusatory look. "Don't you care? I mean, I thought you two were—" He crosses his middle and index fingers, waving vaguely.

Shiro picks up his bowl and stands, letting the chair screech across the floor as it scoots back. "We're not. Keith is his own person. I respect his choices—"

He barely makes it to the counter.

The bowl slips through his fingers before he can set it down—literally _through_ , because his hand has completely melted it—and splats on the floor below. The four of them stare at the bubbling, hissing mess of food goo and polystyrene. It's a metaphor somehow, he's sure.

Another laugh floats in from the hallway. Two laughs: one sterling and familiar, one low and smooth. He twitches, violently.

"Yeah, ok. Are you serious?" Lance squints at him. "Like, if you walked in there right now and dropped down on one knee, I'm pretty sure Keith would say yes."

The sentence doesn't immediately compute, because those words don't belong together, but when it does, he loses a moment to imagining it. Kneeling, with Keith's calloused hand in his and Keith's face above, framed in dark hair, with stars in his eyes—

Pidge snorts. "Yeah, if he dropped to his knees and did anything.”

That’s over the line. So far over. “Pidge—“

 _Don't imagine it_ , he tells himself again, too late. Years too late. Years, spent shaping the feel of Keith’s hands in his hair, how’d they tug, and the heat and weight of him against his tongue—

He reaches back a hand to steady himself on the counter against the three sets of eyes that are glued to him in fascinated horror. No. He's not looking anyone in the eye with the imagined taste of that on his tongue.

And god, has he imagined it.

The counter hisses under his hand.

He springs away, but too late, and there it is: the unmistakable impression of his handprint smoking on the countertop. His shame, immortalized. They stare at it, and then at the once-bowl turned permanent floor decor.

It's like a modern art exhibit: here lies Shiro's self-respect. He gets lost in it for a second, focusing on trying to power down his arm, which won’t quite listen to him over the roaring in the back of his mind.

He's a mess. That's the entire situation in a nut shell—he's a mess and there's no coming back from any of this. Keith and Lotor, Lotor and Keith. 

He can’t live with that. It'll be agony, in the most literal sense, and there’s no way he can watch that day in and day out. Keith is still—always—the best thing he has.

The team doesn’t need him, not really. Not with Keith piloting the Black Lion and growing into his own as a leader. A better leader than Shiro ever was, at least. Maybe he can be an emissary, or maybe the Blade will take him.

Staying isn’t an option. Living with this will break him, and he can already see the months and years ahead of him, wondering what would have happened if he’d been braver, sooner.

The hand on his shoulder shakes him out of it: Hunk, big brown eyes full of sympathy. "I don't know what's going on with—" he darts a glance to the hallway, the ex-bowl, the smoking counter, "— _that_ , but if you need to talk we're here for you."

Lance and Pidge back him up, nodding. The sentiment is sweet, but if there’s a universe where he wants to confess his four year crush to a gaggle of teenagers, this isn’t it.

"I was serious, you know," Lance says. "Actually I had no idea you liked him until this morning. Didn't peg you for the reacher."

The—what?

"You've got it wrong. Keith doesn't—he doesn't feel that way about me."

The collective eye roll is devastating. He looks to Pidge for reason, and her eyes soften. "Shiro, I'm pretty sure he has a diary hidden under his bed full of your name in heart bubbles."

Hunk nods. "Like, a scrapbook at least.”

"I bet he has a wedding venue and a tux picked out,” Lance mutters.

Inaccurate. Keith would want an outdoor wedding, surrounded by rocks and sky and quiet. No tux. A nice shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the sun in his hair and in his eyes, setting his edges aglow. They could drive out on the hover bike before sunset, just the two of them, stay out all night under the stars—

It must come across in his face, because the trio is staring him in various states of pitying awe. Hunk makes a sad sound, like Shiro is a tray of cookies left in the oven too long.

“Wow. I mean, Keith? Really? I guess love really is blind...” Lance sighs. “Is it the gloves?” 

He doesn't want to answer—doesn't mean to, because it’s everything, and there’s no way to say that so it will make sense. But he surprises himself.

"I used to have to carry him back to his bunk because he kept falling asleep in the gym at the Garrison, and he was heavy and sweaty, and I just... That was the best part of my day. It’s still the best part of my day.” He trails off, brushes his fingers through his white bangs. There’s something sitting in his throat, but it's important, for some reason. It's important to finish saying it now that he’s started. “I don't think you can explain it, sometimes. He’s—everything."

The trio is quiet, for a long minute. What do you say to that?

He takes the opening and excuses himself before he can lose anything else to this, but Hunk follows and stops him in the hallway.  “You should talk to him. He really does... I’m pretty sure he _loves_ —“

Shiro rounds on him.

“ _No_. He doesn’t,” Shiro snaps without meaning to, but he can’t keep his voice level. “Not like that.” He walks off before Hunk can answer, because there are limits to what a person can deal with in one day and he’s hit his peak. 

“You know, you’re the only person on this ship that thinks so,” Hunk calls after him. “Maybe you should ask yourself why.”

He lies in bed with those words playing in his head.

This is what kills him, every time. Keith has a way of slipping into all his empty spaces and lingering. There’s a spot on his bed where Keith sits when he needs to talk things out, and a spot against his chest where Keith’s face presses when they hug, and a spot on his shoulder where Keith’s hand rests in absent moments.

He’s years too late to pull out of this crash.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing he sees when he walks in the kitchen the next morning is white hair.

He spins on his heel, but it’s too late—Lotor has already spotted him. 

“Shirogane.” His voice is warm and smooth, and the last thing he wants to hear. Shiro is going to destroy whoever gave him his full name—unless it was Keith, in which case he’d just as soon release himself out an airlock. “I was hoping we’d have the chance to talk.”

He actually sounds sincere. Lotor is a good person. That’s the hardest part of this—there’s no real objection he can make that won’t make him sound exactly what he is: jealous and petty.

But when he turns around, Lotor is eyeing him with a small smile, almost appreciative. He meets Shiro’s eyes and leans back, moving his eyes up and down Shiro's figure with intent. 

No fucking way.

Lotor doesn’t give him time to organize his own thoughts, gliding across the floor and right into Shiro’s personal space. And then there’s a hand on Shiro’s chin, tilting his face upward and another on the wrist of his Galra hand, warm and calloused. He cuts right to the chase. “I know you care for him. There’s no reason you can’t be a part of this.”

No way. No fucking way.

He’s in too much shock to process it, exhausted from nursing this high-key resentment, and this situation wasn’t on his map of known reality when he woke up this morning.

No, is his first thought, but before he can say it the thumb on his wrist slides over the sensitive skin there, right along the edge of the glove, and under. The yellow-eyed thing stalking the back of his mind stands down and gives a tiny, confused, _maybe?_

It’s been so long. There’s desire curling through the pit of his stomach, and if this is the only way he can be with Keith, if this is the only way he can make sure Keith is happy—

Lotor smiles and tips his head forward, hair falling in curtains around them. “Think it over,” he whispers into the space between them, and pulls away slowly, lingering in Shiro’s space for another moment.

He’s actually considering it, which of course is the exact moment it all goes to hell.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

They tear apart—Keith is standing in the doorway, and he looks _devastated_ for a brief moment, before his eyes narrow dangerously.

He lunges forward, too fast too follow. Lotor and Shiro scatter in opposite directions, but Keith is a force of nature. He seizes Lotor by the front of his armor and shoves him back, so hard that he hits the counter behind him with an audible gasp. Keith follows him, and god—he already has his knife in his hand.

He presses it against Lotor’s neck with a growl. There’s a flash of blue as it transforms, shearing off a lock of Lotor’s hair in the process.

This... this doesn’t make sense. Shiro puts up a hand, wishing this was a recorded sim test he could rewind and play back on repeat. “Keith—“

Keith isn’t listening.

“Did you touch him?” Keith snarls, right in Lotor’s face.

Which doesn’t make sense either, because obviously they were touching, unless Keith means _touching._ It’s bizarre to see him jealous over someone—painful, to see him jealous over someone else.

Lotor darts his gaze to Shiro, over Keith’s shoulder, eyebrows quirked upward, but Keith sees and pulls Lotor up by his armor before he slams him back against the counter. “Don’t look at him.”

It’s almost comical, Lotor being manhandled by the second shortest person on the ship, except for the part where Keith is about to re-start an intergalactic conflict over—what?

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Lotor says, putting up both his hands in what would be a calming gesture were this anyone but Keith, who tightens his hold. It’s a wonder Lotor isn’t bleeding.

Shiro finally gathers himself enough to shake off his fugue state; the last thing they need is one of Lotor’s generals walking in and seeing this. If they lose this alliance over an imagined love triangle, Shiro really will quit. Go find a nice island planet, live out his days on a nice beach. Coran will keep him updated, probably. Maybe.

“Keith—really, nothing happened. It’s ok." It’s like he’s trying to speak a language he doesn’t know, a random string of words that seems like they might be the right ones.

Keith glances at him and then back to Lotor. It works; he pulls away the blade with a quiet, “Fine," and sheathes it.

He drops Lotor without a second glance. The once-over he gives Shiro as he walks over is familiar, but it has a foreign edge.

It’s possessive, he realizes with a start, and then berates himself. There’s no way it’s—

Keith takes a step closer, and puts a hand to the side of Shiro’s face. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah...?” Shiro tries, aware that he’s blushing. The gloves against his cheek are softer than he imagined them.

Keith nods and pulls away, his fingers lingering against the scar for an absent moment as he goes. There’s no acknowledgement, no sense that he understands that what he’s just done was far, far over a wide line between them.

“Keith... what was that?”

The look on his face is almost comical. Part feigned boredom, part attitude, like a dog caught misbehaving.  _I would never and have never done anything wrong and know nothing about this._

"Why did you attack him?" Shiro clarifies needlessly, as much for himself as for Keith. He needs the answer to this, because no part of this morning has made sense yet, and this least of all.

“I—but he was—“ Keith stutters—actually stutters. He's blue screening, right in front of them. Lotor catches Shiro’s eye from where he’s leaning against the counter, like he intended to be there all along, and they share a look. “He was attacking you,” he seizes on, finally.

Lotor laughs from his position on the counter. “I wasn’t attacking him.”

Keith’s gaze darts around, ceiling to floor and back again, like there will be a neon sign somewhere explaining the situation. It really is the Garrison all over again.

“I was _flirting_ with him,” Lotor says, enunciating the word for effect, giving it more syllables than it really warrants. “But I wouldn't have bothered if I knew you two were exclusive.” Lotor says, raising one eyebrow. As far as sarcasm goes, it’s bone dry.

That's not the direction he wanted this to go in. Shiro opens his mouth to end the conversation, but Keith beats him to it with a disbelieving laugh and a, “What?”

“We’re not like that,” Shiro says.

Lotor’s other eyebrow goes up. “How long have you two been—“ he nods at their proximity, “— _not_ like that?”

“Like _what_? What are you talking about?” It's Keith frustrated, like he gets when he knows there are layers to a conversation he's not picking up. It's a confirmation of what Shiro has known all along: Keith has never thought of them like this, in any context. 

He has to consciously force himself to stay in the room. This is the worst possible scenario—Keith figuring this out, in this way, in front of Lotor. 

“Are you joking?” Lotor asks. “Is this an Earth joke?”

It’s literally the furthest from that anything has ever been. Unless Shiro’s life is an extended tragicomedy. Keith raises his hands, palm up, like he always does when something is so ridiculous he literally can’t comprehend it. Because the idea of being with Shiro, like that, is ridiculous to him. Ouch.

“Let me start from the beginning. I have been flirting with you. Do you have flirting on Earth?”

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes—“

“You were flirting? With me?” Ah, god. Keith's voice is already hoarse with emotion. “Why?”

That’s somehow worse, because that means for the past two days, Keith has been letting Lotor drape himself all over without knowing it was a very pointed effort to get in his pants. It’s the Garrison all over again. Very beautiful, very messy, and unbelievably oblivious.

His entire life is going to be like this. Keith will always need him, but there’s a difference between needing and wanting, and they’re always going to be right here.

_You’re a fool._

“Why? What kind of a question is that? You...” Lotor trails off, jaw working up and down, flustered for the first time since they’ve known him. “How did you not _notice_?”

Keith folds his arms and looks at the ceiling, heat coloring the bridge of his nose and cheek bones. “Maybe you’re just bad at flirting.”

“You let me touch your sword!”

“Because you asked!”

“I thought it was a metaphor!”

Keith frowns and shakes his head. “How is that—“ his eyes go wide, “—oh.”

 _This is the boy you’re in love with_ , Shiro tells himself, with despair. It’s more than enough embarrassment to last the three of them for a lifetime, but Lotor isn’t done.

“Yes, well.” He picks himself up off the counter, picking at his sleeves and straightening his hair with a sad glance at the small pile of shorn locks lying on the floor. “I thought you two were together, but I didn't realize you were in love with him.”

Shiro jerks his hand away from his eyes just in time to see Keith’s eyes go wide— _wide_. Keith leans back, stands up straighter, like the words are a physical affront and he’s just been slapped. His mouth opens and works up and down. If he was blue-screened before, this is a full system failure.

Shiro turns a sour look on Lotor, who shrugs.

“I’m—I am _not_ —“ His head swivels toward Shiro and pins him with the same wide gaze, as if this is the first time he’s ever actually looked at him. It hurts, a little bit, but then Keith’s eyes jerk down his body and back up.

Heat colors his face and spreads down his neck, and it’s contagious because his eyes are still fastened somewhere below Shiro’s neck, rapt. 

“I’m not...” he trails off faintly.

“You can’t be serious. You tried to cut my neck because you thought I touched him. Would you do that if I touched the Blue one?”

Keith frowns. “Lance? No, why would I—“

“Can I be honest?”

 _You have been so far_ , Shiro thinks, and eyes the door again.

“I was sure you two were involved,” Lotor says, not waiting for permission. “And the fact that you aren’t, the fact that you seem completely unaware of each other is a physical agony to me. How long have you known each other? Months?”

It’s not really a question but Shiro rolls his eyes and mouths _four years_ at him.

Lotor’s eyes go wide. “Have you been this way the whole time?” He shakes his head like he can’t comprehend them, and that’s a mood Shiro can relate to. “You touched his _face_. How—” he stops himself, grimacing, “—please tell me you haven’t been... fondling each other like that this whole time.”

Shiro glances from the door to the ceiling, and then at Lotor, trying to figure out if it would be more expedient to cut his way out of the room.

“Oh...” Keith says faintly, and then meets Shiro’s eyes, finally. He looks—terrified.

_Oh._

That word contains multitudes.

“Oh?” Lotor asks, and then shakes his head, making for the door. “No, I’m out. Talk to me in three years when you’ve gotten past the erotic hand-holding stage of your relationship,” he says as he walks out.

 _Wait,_ says the pathetic, mournful thing in the back of Shiro’s mind, before he crushes it. He’s not that pathetic, and he's not that hard up. Almost, but not quite.

Keith and Shiro watch him go in perfect silence, and then Keith surprises him.

“This..." Keith trails off, and then takes a deep breath and gathers himself. "This doesn’t have to change anything." He's still staring after Lotor, like he really can’t bring himself to look at Shiro at all.

There are at least a dozen wrong things to say, jumping at the tip of his tongue, and he can’t pick his way past them. _I want this to change things_ is too forward. _Ok, it doesn’t_ will leave them right where they are and then they’ll be in their forties with a house and a dog and never have left this room.

 _I love you_  is closer to right, but it still feels like a fatal risk.

The silence stretches, and it's the worst of Shiro's life. He can't make himself move or speak or fully believe any of this.

Keith takes the choice away from him. He glances up at Shiro, and then closes his eyes in something like anger, the spot between his brows wrinkling like they always do when he's trying to muster himself against an outburst.

“Please,” Keith says. “Just once, please," and then crosses the feet between them. He brings up his hands to cup Shiro’s face in a gesture that can’t be written off as simple affection. It's sudden—too sudden—and it sends Shiro’s heart leaping at double time. He can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t wrap his head around what's happening or risk interrupting.

Keith closes his eyes, and kisses him.

His lips against Shiro’s mouth are soft and dry and clumsy, and absolutely desperate. There’s no mistake in this, no misinterpretation, and still Shiro can’t understand it. It’s perfect, but too much, too fast. Years of longing have ingrained stillness in him—Keith has dominion over Shiro’s space and time, always, but he would never presume the reverse. That gap is impassable.

He needs Keith to pull away and tell him what this is before he runs away with it. He’s so still for so long, he thinks Keith will, but Keith only pulls back enough to take a breath and lick his lips, and then he's pressing them back against Shiro's. It's determined, and still clumsy, like he can't figure out what he wants to do, but it's an argument he's not willing to back down on.

It works.

There's no fight left in him to resist. Shiro returns it, finally, but it's somehow the wrong thing to do. He barely has a chance to press into it before Keith jerks back. He doesn’t go far, still holding Shiro’s face between his gloved hands, but he’s already looking away. This is a Keith he knows like the back of his hand; this is Keith before he runs.

It doesn't make sense, but none of this has. 

Shiro sighs and brings his hands up to hold Keith’s where they’re still against his cheeks. This is going to be them for the rest of their lives if he doesn’t do something right now.

“Please can you just—look at me.”

He meets Shiro’s gaze for a second before his eyes drop again. Shiro tightens his hold, and pulls his hands down, splaying one of Keith’s palms and pressing it against his chest where they can both feel his heart racing.

_Just spit it out. You don’t have anything left to lose._

“Keith... I love you." There's no reason for it to be so difficult, but breathing life into those words tears something out of him.

Keith shakes his head. “You’re lying,” he says, without hesitation.

Shiro laughs in disbelief. “Why would I lie?“

“To make me feel better,” Keith replies, and his voice cracks on it—actually breaks. He pulls his hands away, covering his eyes with one.

It's a gesture Shiro doesn't immediately recognize, because he’s never seen Keith cry out of anything but frustration before. Emotion is private for him, always, but when it comes out, it’s like a damn breaking. This is always where he ends up—close to Shiro, needing a center, and that’s easy. That’s something Shiro knows how to be.

It's the first time he's had solid ground in days.

When he pulls Keith’s hand away from his face, he isn’t crying, but his eyes are clenched shut like he’s afraid he might. It’s as painful to see as it is endearing. “Keith, I’m not lying.”

Shiro pulls him into a loose embrace. It should feel intimate or different, but it’s like every hug they’ve ever shared, and maybe this doesn’t have to be difficult or strange. Keith sniffs against him.

“Are you crying?” Shiro buries a hand in his hair, like he’s wanted to for years. It’s softer than he imagined. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Keith chokes out, and wipes his nose against Shiro’s chest.

Shiro rolls his eyes. “You’re right—nothing has to change if you don’t want it to.” Slow doesn’t begin to describe them, and that’s fine. They’ll work their way through this one baby step at a time.

Keith digests that for a moment, and then asks softly, “Can we do more than hold hands? I don’t—I don't want to just hold hands.”

Shiro smiles, and rubs his cheek against his hair, mussing it because he can.

“Yeah. I think we can manage that.”

**Author's Note:**

> lotor spends the next three days watching bad movies and binging on ice cream. also this was written before s3 so apologies for literally everything? 
> 
> Come chit chat with me on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir)!


End file.
